At 3.30am, John’s head was brimming with things we wanted to say to BA after having been put through the mill the previous evening by their alliance partner Qantas.
At 4.00am John got out of bed, wide awake and began writing an email to BA. At 4.45, he went back to bed, only to get up again at 5.15am to add some finishing touches, by which time it was 6.30am and Fiona had risen.
If you think the met office weather forecasts are poor, you ain’t seen anything yet. In NZ, it seems almost impossible to get a forecast anywhere near reality. Today was supposed to be good, but pulling back the curtains revealed a day of light rain, steel grey skies and wind.
After a spot of breakfast, we filled the car and headed down to the port to catch our ferry to Wellington on the South Island.
Once on the ferry, we found a comfy window seat and settled in with a cup of tea and coffee. After five minutes, we were told that the area we were sitting in had been reserved for some children, so we had to move to the other side of the boat. By the time we found the lounge, it was almost full. We found a couple of seats and settled back in.
John slept for most of the three hour journey, having not had a full nights sleep. We arrived at Wellington just after 11.30am. The weather was awful. Cold, windy and raining.
We found the local supermarket, purchased goods for a couple of days and visited the visitor info centre. Yet again, they did no have any maps for the famous local trek, The Queen Charlotte trek. They always seem to want to sell you an official tour which in this case was $62 each. Due to the weather, we decided not to do it, as the whole area was in thick cloud.
Instead, we headed out of town to another info centre and a found a hiking area on one of their maps. We found the hiking area and set off. The walk was so akin to the Pentland Hills above Edinburgh, it was spooky. There were Scottish thistles, sheep, cows and wind. Just like Scotland.
At 4.00am John got out of bed, wide awake and began writing an email to BA. At 4.45, he went back to bed, only to get up again at 5.15am to add some finishing touches, by which time it was 6.30am and Fiona had risen.
If you think the met office weather forecasts are poor, you ain’t seen anything yet. In NZ, it seems almost impossible to get a forecast anywhere near reality. Today was supposed to be good, but pulling back the curtains revealed a day of light rain, steel grey skies and wind.
After a spot of breakfast, we filled the car and headed down to the port to catch our ferry to Wellington on the South Island.
Once on the ferry, we found a comfy window seat and settled in with a cup of tea and coffee. After five minutes, we were told that the area we were sitting in had been reserved for some children, so we had to move to the other side of the boat. By the time we found the lounge, it was almost full. We found a couple of seats and settled back in.
John slept for most of the three hour journey, having not had a full nights sleep. We arrived at Wellington just after 11.30am. The weather was awful. Cold, windy and raining.
We found the local supermarket, purchased goods for a couple of days and visited the visitor info centre. Yet again, they did no have any maps for the famous local trek, The Queen Charlotte trek. They always seem to want to sell you an official tour which in this case was $62 each. Due to the weather, we decided not to do it, as the whole area was in thick cloud.
Instead, we headed out of town to another info centre and a found a hiking area on one of their maps. We found the hiking area and set off. The walk was so akin to the Pentland Hills above Edinburgh, it was spooky. There were Scottish thistles, sheep, cows and wind. Just like Scotland.
At one point, we thought the wind might blow us off the side of the hill. The weather here was better than in Wellington, with just a few drops of rain in the wind and a few hints of sun. We found our way back to the start, jumped back in the car and drove to one of Fiona’s favourite NZ Vineyards, Villa Maria.
The vine tasting was free of charge and they were all delicious. We ended up purchasing just one bottle, but could have bought the lot. It turns out that the export over 30% of their total yearly production to the UK.
We drove back into town ,listening to our iPod through a clever devise that lets you play your MP3 device through the music cassette system. Decent music at last.
We found our Motel which is wonderful. Brand new huge rooms, with a great kitchen, huge beds, massive flat screen TV, DVD player and a massive DVD library. Perfect,as the weather in Wellington was still not great.
We logged onto the internet, checked some local activities out and watched some DVD’s over a glass of wine.
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